We had three idols back then: the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and Victor Vasarely

• How is it possible that half a century after World War II 800 Vasarely works went missing? (some of which are still missing to this day)
• What happens when the heirs of a world-famous artist feel that they have been left out of the inheritance? What about when two wills are discovered in succession and then one of the descendants sues the family?
• Why would a full-blooded French woman leave her homeland and settle in Chicago and then Puerto Rico?
• And, of course: what happened that day in the spring of 2023 when a woman with her cats woke up to the words "FBI, come down immediately or we'll break down the door!"
• For the first time, Michéle Taburno-Vasarely, one of the unlikely protagonists of the Vasarely affair, gives an interview to the Hungarian press.
• We covered the whole affair in detail in an article available here.

You and your future husband, Jean-Pierre (aka Yvaral), son of Victor Vasarely, first met in the early sixties. You have been a part of the Vasarely story ever since.

My husband and I met in 1963 at Victor Vasarely's first major exhibition at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris. It was an unforgettable, magical and magnificent event. The youth of my generation were fascinated by this new artist who was so different and who exuded so much of the spirit of that time. We had three idols back then: the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and Victor Vasarely.

When I arrived at the exhibition opening, I was thrilled to discover the work of the Hungarian artist who had been the subject of so many newspaper articles. Victor himself, however, did not come to his own exhibition opening, saying that he felt unwell. I later learned that he hated exhibition openings. He sent his son Yvaral to represent him and then, boom, it was love at first sight for both of us. My heart leapt, and for the first time in my life I fell in love on the spot.

Weren't there any suspicions that you had just set your sights on Vasarely's son, who was also an artist, in hopes of an easy life and financial gain?

I don't bother with whatever gossipers have to say. It's funny that my husband never wanted to benefit from his father's fame and financial resources. In fact, in the beginning, when he was still a young artist without enough income, I was the one who financed his day-to-day life. I took art classes at the Académie des Arts Plastiques, and at the same time some friends and I opened a restaurant called Mini in the then-fashionable Parisian quarter, the Place de la Contrescarpe. The restaurant quickly took off because I decorated it like a doll's house; it was small but very sophisticated. I made a lot of money in a short period of time, and we lived off it for the first years of our relationship until Yvaral's work started to catch on. Between my classes and the restaurant, my day didn't finish until the middle of the night.

Poor Yvaral had to wait patiently for eight months before I finally gave in to him. I was brought up in an extremely strict convent where we were taught "nothing before marriage". That was half a century ago – those were very different times. In any case, our life was defined by a single concept: work, which in this artistic context was a real pleasure. It was a privilege to work with brilliant artists.

What was your relationship like with your father-in-law and mother-in-law Claire Vasarely?

My own mother, for reasons unknown to me, unfortunately had rejected me from birth, and I was equally unlucky with my husband's mother. I was hoping to find a surrogate mother in my mother-in-law, but I was unsuccessful. Claire was a very particular person, and she wasn't much of a people person. She was cold and distant, and had little love to give. On the other hand, she was obviously a talented artist. It's a shame she gave up on becoming a great artist. I always respected her, although I never bonded with her as a person.

Victor Vasarely, on the other hand, took me on as an accomplice from the very beginning. I was young and immature, and I had no concrete vision of my future. Being the intelligent man that he was, he detected in me a certain potential, a sense of communication and also a desire to feel useful. One day he said to me, laughing: "Forget about the restaurant, forget about the schoolwork, I'll give you a job. Working alongside artists is the best school for learning art." He was right, I couldn't let this exceptional opportunity pass me by, so I took him up on it. Helping my father-in-law was not only a duty for me, but above all an honor.

As recollections have it, your father-in-law and your husband were similar not only in their special talents, but also in their affinity for women.

My husband, much like his father, was quite the charmer, and drawn to women. In addition, the '60s and '70s were also a time of promiscuity, especially for men: it was a time of sexual revolution.

We were artists in an unconventional open marriage. It's not easy being an artist's wife: there's temptation everywhere, women love artists and some will stop at nothing to win them over. You cannot chain up the man of your life, and for me, a relationship is not a prison. I had to cut jealousy out of the relationship, otherwise it wouldn't have lasted. I realized this quickly and was able to turn my feelings of love into an enduring friendship. For me, loving your husband means trying to make him happy, not keeping him on a short leash. Our lives were full of moments of joy, twists and turns and discoveries, but we always remembered that love is fragile and you have to be able to adapt to the other person's character and reality.

The family's life was eclipsed by a twist fit for a detective story: 800 works of art were discovered to be missing from the Vasarely Foundation. Some of them were later recovered, while the whereabouts of others are still unknown, despite the fact that the movements of artworks have been pretty traceable since World War II. You, your husband and your brother-in-law put the blame for this on the then president, Charles Debbasch, who ran the foundation from 1981 to 1993.

In 1981, Victor Vasarely, who was in poor health, signed an agreement concerning the management of the foundation with the University of Aix-Marseille Law School, whose president was Charles Debbasch. After the agreement was signed, Debbasch became president of the foundation.

In 1990, Claire, who had also been ill, suddenly died, and Victor entrusted me with the management of his affairs, particularly the difficulties of his life. It was then that I discovered the embezzlement that was going on at the foundation, whose director at the time was Yvaral's son, Pierre Vasarely. A legal action was launched because Debbasch had started a legal attack on the aging artist and his sons in order to create confusion and defend himself.

How could so many pieces of art disappear?

In 1995, when the scandal concerning the foundation and the artist hit the news, a government agency and tax authorities initiated an audit of the institution's past management. The accounts audit took more than a year to complete: it went back to the earliest donations, examined more than a thousand pieces of art and found that 800 paintings had disappeared. The foundation was and still is under the control of the state, which is a highly controversial situation and particularly embarrassing for those responsible for its management.

I don't know how the artwork disappeared, and exercising my right to err, I concluded that no one seemed to mind. Since Charles Debbasch died, the only person who I think knows the truth is Pierre, my stepson, who was the director of the institution at the time and was there on a daily basis.

Vasarely outlived his wife by seven years. After Claire's death, an arbitration tribunal was convened, which in the mid-1990s ruled that 950 million francs were due to Yvaral and André, Claire Vasarely's heirs. The foundation had no funds to cover this, so it was decided that the family members would receive works of art from it. Then, more than a decade later, a court ruling declared the arbitration invalid.

Vasarely requested in writing that his sons recover the works that were left at the foundation. Then came the arbitration. As for the annulment, I find it incredible that 13 years after the fact a judge should say that the arbitration was invalid, on the grounds that one of the members of the arbitration was related to the heirs and that this conflicts with French law.

However, the court did not say that the works had to be returned, because to do so would have deprived the two sons of their inheritance, which is illegal in France. When I found out that the arbitration had been annulled for conflict of interest, I immediately asked if the works had to be returned – as I was in possession of the works that the heirs had given me. The judgment annulling the arbitration proceedings did not order the works to be returned, because to do so would have violated French inheritance laws.

Then came another twist: after Victor Vasarely passed away, his grandson Pierre sued his father Yvaral and his uncle André.

When Victor Vasarely passed away in 1997, his will, which he had left to a notary friend, was opened. His sons were informed of its contents, according to which his remaining assets would be divided equally between them. However, another will was discovered, which had been registered in 1993 in southern France. This consisted of a few lines and stated that Pierre was responsible for Victor Vasarely's works within the foundation. As Vasarely had expressed his wishes not only in his will but also in various letters to third parties, including a letter to the Vasarely Museum in Budapest, the artist's sons rejected the new will, believing that Pierre had taken advantage of his grandfather's failing health. Pierre immediately took legal action against his family.

My husband was shocked that his own son turned on him and outraged at his son's mistreatment of him, so he fell into a deep depression and an aggressive form of cancer was found to be developing in him. He died in August 2002.

When the disease began to overwhelm him, I became distraught; I wanted to help him, but I was powerless. The only relief I could offer him was to lie to him. The day before he died, I arrived at the hospital with some good news that I had fabricated. I told him that his son had withdrawn the charges. His face lit up and he asked me why. I said, "he regrets what he did to you". That was his last joy, his last glowing expression, his last smile, the image of which is with me to this day. He died the very next day.

I had imagined that when Pierre was faced with this tragedy, he would drop the charges against his father, but the opposite happened – I inherited the lawsuit, and in the state of confusion I found myself in, I didn't have the strength to defend myself. As for the French justice system and political interventions, I try to refrain from arguing. I would only refer to the letter written by Pierre Vasarely to the President of the French Republic, in which he thanks the President 'for the intervention of his services in this ongoing case'. In the end, the will that has been recognized as valid is the one that Pierre probably dictated to his grandfather and which Pierre refers to as if it were the Bible. But these few meaningless lines only bear the marks of disgrace and betrayal.

What is particularly interesting is that Pierre Vasarely is in fact your stepson. Was your relationship strained from the start?

Initially, I would have liked to regard my stepson as my own son, but even as a young child he already rejected me when we first met. I later learned that when he was 3, he blamed me for his parents' divorce. His argument was unfounded because my future husband was already divorced by the time I met him.

Since I didn't have any children, ideally, I would have dreamed of having a foster son who I could team up with and share a lot of things with, including my property. Unfortunately, in his search for an identity, and with a complex about not having inherited the talents of his father and grandfather – because talent is not hereditary – Pierre Vasarely sought to assert himself by creating scandals through a legal system and media that he was in perfect control of. (We also interviewed Pierre Vasarely, which is available here.)

You don't need a degree to understand that simply having a famous name doesn't mean anything. A person is to be judged by their actions, not by their name and the privileges that go with it, and still less by the fame of an artist they themselves admit to having rarely met. Pierre had all the resources at his disposal to become brilliantly successful. Yet he chose a different path. He made the fatal mistake of daring to sue his father and his uncle, the artist's two sons. Going after me was another mistake on his part. He thinks he has been successful, but in the art world he has the reputation of being someone who is always suing and worth avoiding. His behavior is contrary to the art world. At sixty-four, he still does not understand that, like me, he is supposed to serve the artist's body of work and not the characters in a ridiculous farce that leads nowhere but to the destruction of everything that artists spent a lifetime building with their genius and commitment to their ideals. With his destructive actions, Pierre has managed to turn wine back into water.

He is the one who is better known in Hungary – Pécs is practically his second home. In preparing for our interview, I met some people who fear that you might make demands that would affect the collections of the two Hungarian museums. I saw a letter dated 1992 that could be interpreted that way.

I don't recall this 1992 letter, which might have been dictated to me by lawyers. I am not the heir of Claire or Victor, but I represent the interests of my late husband Yvaral, Victor's son. I have never had the slightest intention of demanding anything from Hungarian museums – quite the opposite, in fact: when Mr József Sárkány, the then director of the Pécs museum, contacted me to say that they had nothing to sell in the Pécs shop, I sent hundreds of posters to Hungary so that the museum could generate some revenue. I vaguely remember that at one point my father-in-law asked me to sort out the files relating to Hungary, which were quite disorganised, but this had nothing to do with sending back the art. My father-in-law was very attached to his memories of Hungary. I think that the donations he made to his homeland should be respected, all the more so as it seems that those paintings are in good hands and did not disappear, as was the case with the Aix-en-Provence foundation.

We are currently meeting in San Juan, the capital of Puerto Rico. You moved from Paris to Chicago in the mid-2000s, and then to Puerto Rico, an associated state of the United States, just over a decade ago. Why?

Following the death of my husband, Yvaral, when Pierre Vasarely was seeking revenge, I decided to move to the United States to work in peace and try to re-establish myself. After a few years in Chicago, I decided to make Puerto Rico my new home, which is also a US territory and which I know well, as one of my best friends was Puerto Rican.

What other reasons were there for choosing Puerto Rico?

Puerto Rico is a sunny place with a favorable climate and a particularly relaxing atmosphere. My artistic activity makes it possible for me to live here. Peace and tranquility are like oxygen for me. I wanted to collaborate with a Puerto Rican individual who used to work with my husband in France because I needed help with my work. I considered him a friend, but he betrayed me, and only later did I realize that behind the betrayal, as always, was a secret connection to my stepson, who follows me wherever I go. Since 1998 he has been relentlessly attacking me, and even turned against his own father and uncle. He obsessively sues; it's one legal attack after another. He believes that after 40 years of marriage and work, I should be destitute in my old age.

In France, children cannot be excluded from inheritance. Victor Vasarely was an artist who was particularly distant from law and the legal system. By making large donations to various organizations and individuals, he – albeit unintentionally – left his children out. When the scandal at the Vasarely Foundation revealed embezzlement and theft, he wanted the paintings remaining at the institution to be distributed among his sons, and that is what happened. The heirs donated some of the paintings to me, on the grounds that I had used my own money to cover the heavy legal costs and care of the artist in the last years of his life, which I was happy to do, as my father-in-law was always very kind and generous to me. I genuinely loved him and had no interest in the money.

When the heirs recovered the paintings, they thought that I should not have had to bear such expenses, so they offered to compensate me with paintings. My husband advised me to accept the offer. These are the works that in 1996 were formally donated to me with the accompanying documentation and which my stepson wants to get back. To achieve his aims, he accuses me of the most horrible things, calling me a 'former prostitute', so as to give me a bad name. He drags me through the mud to make himself look good and to obtain my property by force. But in reality he is only disgracing himself and tarnishing his own name. He is ruining the work of his artist grandfather under the banner of altruism and virtue.

Pierre Vasarely has been suing you for decades over works of art that you received in 1996. He claims that you hold 112 works of art illegally. They were seized by the FBI last spring. Pierre Vasarely has often made the argument that these works of art still belong to the Vasarely Foundation.

In 2008, he sued me for the works, which I won, as the court ruled that the works were mine and that neither Pierre nor the foundation had the right to demand their return. Upset at the verdict, he brought another action against me for the same works. He used the Vasarely Foundation and its administrator, Xavier Huertas, to file criminal charges, just when I had won the previous case concerning the same matter. The French legal system makes it possible to file the same lawsuit over and over again, creating a never-ending cycle.

How many legal actions have been brought against you?

Pierre has filed about twenty lawsuits against me and others. He sues anyone who dares to contradict him or question him. He threatens me and goes to court. His victims include galleries, collectors and museums. In fact, he has even sued the Vasarely Foundation several times in the past. For him, litigation has become a lifestyle and is proof of his idleness, lack of both courage and honesty, and his disregard for the two artists who devoted their brilliance, energy and lives to their body of work.

The first lawsuit he brought against me – a few weeks after my husband's death – was an attempt to stop me from using the name Vasarely. He was dealt a resounding defeat, and although he never sued me for it again, he consistently refers to me by my father's name in every interview. I'm proud of my father's name, but because I was married to Yvaral for so long, my name is that of the artist.

It is always the same phrase out of Pierre's mouth: 'I will press charges', because he is perfectly familiar with the weaknesses of the French justice system and the greed of some authorities for financial gain.

What is the status of the investigation related to the current case?

The investigation has been ongoing for 15 years, since 2009. The proceedings are confidential, and I have to respect that. We are calmly and patiently waiting for an end to this madness, which is the work of a single person who is hiding behind the facade of an institution (the foundation – ed.) to avenge his own frustrations.

The French judge wanted to seize these works from me as "evidence", which is incomprehensible because they were officially given to me. Pierre Vasarely is the epitome of manipulation, and in this respect I am in awe of him. In order to confiscate these works on US soil, under US law the French judge had to notify the FBI. The FBI intervened on the basis of the 1995 Treaty on Mutual Legal Assistance between France and the United States. The procedures are contentious, so I have appealed to the US courts, which have not yet issued a decision. As I said, we have to wait patiently and continue with our work, which is what my team and I are doing.

The most dramatic episode of the current legal battle so far was when the FBI dropped by your house last April and seized 112 works of art by Vasarely and Yvaral. According to reports, it was like something straight out of a movie. What happened exactly?

The FBI officials made arrangements with my lawyers that they would come to pick up the works that I prepared in advance, with due discretion, in the latter part of the morning. However, it transpired quite differently. At six in the morning I woke up to some strange noises. I live above a tourist area that occasionally has drug-related incidents, and sometimes bloody ones too. I could hear over the loudspeakers "FBI, FBI, hands up, drop your weapons!". I thought a fight had broken out under my window.

I was in bed half-asleep, cuddled up with my cats, when my phone rang: "FBI, FBI, come down here immediately or we'll break the door down". I naively imagined they were just trying to protect me. Dressed in a pink lace nightgown, with a ribbon in my hair and a matching phone – half Snow White, half Cinderella – I opened the gate, and four men in black uniforms and ski masks were standing in front of me with machine guns pointed at me. I could hardly breathe. An ambulance was parked in front of us. The doctors got a hold of me and wanted to get me to the hospital because they were afraid I was going to have a heart attack, which did in fact happen three days later.

I'm an action lover by nature. And injustice only amplifies my energy, so fleeing was out of the question, especially the idea of leaving my animals and my home. Watching this Hollywood production was a memorable experience – this demonstration of force and violence – when all they had come to do was simply collect the carefully assembled paintings.

At the end of the day, an FBI agent said to me: "I don't understand why we were sent out here, considering how we're used to bloodshed". Some of the agents were curious and asked me to give them an impromptu art history lesson, so I took them on a tour of the house and explained some of the art. They really enjoyed it. On that memorable day, my thoughts went out to those who, I presume, had witnessed from beyond the grave the senseless fuss that delighted my stepson.

What happened after the investigators left?

As soon as the FBI left, my neighbours threw together a little block party to cheer me up. My thanks again go out to the FBI for not breaking anything in this unique place brimming with softness and femininity.

According to reports, the artworks are now in a warehouse awaiting their fate, i.e. the end of the trial. Is it conceivable that the works will ultimately be flown back to France? What do you think are the possibilities?

It's not in my nature to be afraid of anything, and over the last 20 years I've got used to being subjected to slander. I trust the American justice system not to be tainted by political ideologies and personal interests. We are in the land of reason, pragmatism and evidence, far from the French legal system. I would venture that the federal court will respect my rights, and will also respect the wishes of the two artists who put their trust in me up to their final moments.

We have to be patient and wait for the law to do its thing. I work a lot, which does not leave me much time for anxiety. I am swamped with cultural events and projects. I am an optimistic, idealistic and confident person. I was summoned to testify last February. Unfortunately, I had another heart attack, but I recovered because I am driven to protect my life's work and myself. The only objective of this huge charade is to debilitate me, but they misjudge me. The more I'm persecuted, the stronger I feel. Because of my medical records, the American courts no longer want to take the risk of my testifying.

A few years ago, you set up your own foundation, the Michèle Vasarely Foundation. Why was that?

The foundation that I established is not a museum, but a research center that attracts many museum professionals, historians and students. I want to distance myself from all this fuss, whose only purpose is to deprive me of my assets, to prevent me from doing my work and from keeping my promises to artists. But nothing can stop me. If I make a promise, I will deliver on it. I loved and admired the artists Vasarely and Yvaral too much to abandon them; I have dedicated my life to them. It is thanks to the love, teaching and example of these two extraordinary artists that I have become who I am today. They shaped me and I owe everything to them. I will fight to my last breath to prove my gratitude to them.

The current state of things is very difficult; I feel ashamed for my stepson and sad for my husband who unjustly suffered so much and was also such a great artist. It's so chaotic – it's such a mess!

What kind of future do you envision for the Vasarely and Yvaral pieces that are still in your possession?

Two or three years after my husband died, when I was starting to recover a bit, my initial plan was to return some of my paintings to France after my death. Then, after all the attacks, lawsuits and defamation I had suffered, I changed my mind and decided that my artworks would never return to France. That is why I set up this foundation in the United States.

My foundation's board is made up of extraordinary professionals, respected in the art world, who will continue to run the foundation after me. Everything I own belongs to the foundation, including my home. I want to protect this heritage because I know that if the works were to go back to France, there would be a risk that they would disappear, as has already happened.

So all my assets will stay in the United States. I'm already involved in a lot of discussions and negotiations; I'm preparing for major projects and planning for the future. I hope that this legal saga, which was not initiated by me, will finally come to an end, making way for the art and work of the most important creator of his generation, a pioneer of computing who does not deserve to have his name sullied by trivial disputes that are in stark contrast to what he was.

(We thank our colleague Márton Marczisovszky for his help with the French translation.)